Have you picked up on the new trope du jour? We are all encouraged to
bask in our innocence as we lament the advent of a new Cold War. The
thought has been in the wind for more than a year, of course, at least
among some of us. But we witness a significant turn, and I hope this
same some of us are paying attention.

As
of this week, leaders who know nothing about leading, thinkers who do
not think and opinion-shaping poseurs such as Tom Friedman are confident
enough in their case to sally forth with it: The Cold War returns, the
Russians have restarted it and we must do the right thing—the right
thing being to bring NATO troops and materiel up to Russia’s borders,
pandering to the paranoia of the former Soviet satellites as if they
alone have access to some truth not available to the rest of us.

James
Stavridis, the former admiral and NATO commander, quoted in Wednesday’s
New York Times: “I don’t think we’re in the Cold War again—yet. I can
kind of see it from here.”

I can kind of see it, too, Admiral, and
cannot be surprised: NATO has missed the Cold War since the Wall came
down and the Pentagon’s creature in Europe commenced a quarter-century
of wandering in search of useful enemies. At last, the very best of them
is back.

The inimitable (thank goodness) Tom Friedman on the same
day’s opinion page: “This time it seems like the Cold War without the
fun—that is, without James Bond, Smersh, ‘Get Smart’ Agent 86’s shoe
phone,” and so on.

Leave it to Tom to recall the single most
consequentially corrosive period in American history by way of its
infantile frivolities. He is paid, after all, to make sure Americans
understand events cartoonishly rather than as historical phenomena with
chronology, causality and responsibility attaching to them.

You
have here a classic one-two. Stavridis’ successors in the military get
on with the business of aggressing abroad and trapping Russia in a
frame-up J. Edgar Hoover would admire, while Friedman buries us in
marshmallow fluff sandwiches.

A couple of columns back I wondered
aloud as to what all the talk of renewed Russian aggression, begun in
mid-April, was all about. It certainly had nothing to do with Russian
aggression for the simple reason there was none. If you saw any, please
tell us all about it in the comment box.

A couple of columns
earlier I questioned why John Kerry met Vladimir Putin and Sergei
Lavrov, his foreign minister, in Sochi. Altogether weirdly, the
secretary of state suddenly appeared to make common cause with the
Russian president.

My worst predictions are now realities. We have
just been subjected to a tried-and-sometimes-true campaign preparing us
for a Cold War reprise—begun, like the original, by spooks and Pentagon
planners ever eager to escalate unnecessary tensions in the direction
of unnecessary conflict.

Think with history, readers. We are now
back in the mid-1950s by my reckoning, when the template at work today
was perfected in places such as Guatemala. The Dulles brothers
double-handedly transformed Jacobo Árbenz, offspring of a Swiss druggist
and Guatemala’s second properly elected president, into an agent of
“Communist aggression,” as the Times helpfully described him at the
time. Árbenz was deposed in 1954, of course, and most Americans were
obediently relieved that another “threat” had been countered. (I have
always loved the purely American thought of an aggressive Guatemala.)

On
through the decades, from Ho to Lumumba to Allende to the
Sandinistas—every single case falsely cast as a Moscow-inspired
challenge to the “free world,” every case in truth reflecting America’s
ambition to global dominance. There is a golden rule at work here, so do
not miss it: Americans never act but in response to a threat to human
freedom originating among the mal-intended elsewhere.

Any good
historian—and stop being so negative, you find good ones here and
there—will tell you that the golden rule has applied without exception
since the 18th century. It applied to the Mexicans in the 1840s, the
Spanish in the 1890s, and countless times during the century we call
American.

Even now, the golden rule is inscribed in any American
history text you may pick up. It is integral to Americans’ consciousness
of themselves. And in consequence it is near to impossible for most of
us to grasp our role in events as they unfold before our eyes, never
mind our true place in history.

So long as the rule applies, all
notions of causality and responsibility are erased from the story. This
reality is very close to the root of the American crisis, if you accept
the thought that we are amid one.

I view the marked deterioration
of the West’s relations with Russia since April in precisely this
historically informed light. We have entered upon a new Cold War, all
right, and its similarity to the last one lies in one aspect more
important than any other: Washington instigated this one just as Truman
set the first in motion when he armed the Greek monarchy—fascist by his
own ambassador’s description—against a popular revolt in 1947.

You
would think it something close to a magician’s trickery to conduct a
century and more’s worth of coups, political subterfuge and military
interventions and keep Americans convinced that all done in their names
is done in the name of good. But we live through a case in point. We now
witness an aggressive military advance toward Russia’s borders on a
nearly astonishing scale, yet very few Americans are able to see it for
what it is.

~ Patrick Smith is the author of “Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century.” He was
the International Herald Tribune’s bureau chief in Hong Kong and then
Tokyo from 1985 to 1992. During this time he also wrote “Letter from
Tokyo” for the New Yorker. He is the author of four previous books and
has contributed frequently to the New York Times, the Nation, the
Washington Quarterly, and other publications. Follow him on Twitter, @thefloutist.

Can We Ask Bernie a Few Questions?

Presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) will hold a town meeting at Ocean Gateway in Portland, Maine on Monday, July 6 from 7-8 pm .

Members of CODEPINK and Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear
Power in Space plan to be there with a Bring Our War $$ Home banner and
other messaging focused on how social & environmental programs can be funded while the
Democratic Party continues to support giving 50%+ of the discretionary federal budget
to the Pentagon in FY16.

If you or your group wants to endorse
and join in our effort to point out the elephant of militarization in
the room, please let us know your thoughts. You can rsvp on
the Fazebook event here.

Why won't Bernie talk about his support to bring F-35 to Vermont? What
is his true position on Palestinians? Should we not ask these questions
of a man who wants to be president?

I'll never forget Jimmy Carter
saying during his campaign, "The arms race is a disgrace to the human
race". Then once elected prez he built the Kings Bay Nuclear submarine
base in St. Marys, Georgia. I learned then 'buyer beware'.

Why Do Africans Run?

"Most of the countries on the African continent are rich in resources,
from oil and precious metals to fertile land and water, so why then do
so many people try to escape to the EU? Because we plunder their
resources and leave them nothing. One economist put the theft of African
resources by the West at $60,000,000,000 a year, and the same has been
happening to Central and South America. They aren't 'illegally
immigrating' here because of our 'freedom', they are coming here
because we have left them no other choice."

Take Down That Flag

A woman was arrested for removing the Confederate flag from the South
Carolina Statehouse Saturday -- only to have the banner raised again
less than an hour later.

Bree Newsome climbed the 30-foot pole using a harness in Columbia just
after dawn as officers yelled for her to come down, organizer Tamika
Lewis told the Daily News.

"You cannot get to me with hatred and oppression and violence," Newsome
shouted from the top of the pole, according to video. "I come to do
this in the name of God. This flag comes down today."

Newsome took her time climbing down, citing prayers as she did so. When
she reached the bottom, State Police took the flag out of her hands and
arrested her.

Another activist, James Tyson, spotted Newsome at the bottom of the
pole to make sure she didn't fall, Lewis said. He was arrested alongside
Newsome as a group of onlookers cheered off camera.

Newsome, who is black, and Tyson, who is white, are part of a group of
about 10 activists who orchestrated the flag's removal after a white
supremacist allegedly slaughtered nine people at "Mother" Emanuel Church
in Charleston on June 17.

Historical Perspective on Ending War

David McReynolds, retired staff member of the War Resisters League and
former chair of War Resisters International, spoke June 20, 2015, in
Eureka, California, about the launching of the restored nuclear protest
vessel Golden Rule.

McReynolds makes several important points in this video - one being that early black civil rights struggles opened the door for other movements to step up. Secondly he points out that the peace movement in the 1960-70's never spit on GI's but in fact embraced their return from Vietnam and their participation in the anti-war struggle.

I can attest to his point about GI's not being spit upon. I was stationed at Travis AFB, California during the Vietnam war in 1971-72. I walked through the San Francisco airport in my uniform several times. I often visited San Francisco during those days and never witnessed the slightest bad treatment of GI's. Our haircuts alone made us more than obvious.

Friday, June 26, 2015

On the Rampage in Maine

Tea Party Republican Gov. Paul LePage (Rampage) is on the front pages again these days and is currently facing calls for impeachment by a few members of the state legislature.

LePage's most recent act of bullying was to threaten the board of directors of a school for wayward kids with severe cuts in state funding after they had decided to hire the current Democrat leader of the House of Representatives as their new president. After Gov. Rampage's vindictive reaction to the hiring decision the organization decided to withdraw their job offer to the Democrat House leader prompting newspaper headlines, editorials, and calls for impeachment.

We've been dealing with Rampage's abuses of power for five years and he appears to be collapsing into a fit of self-destruction. He has even begun to threaten fellow Republican party members who are finally having to back away from his over-the-top behavior. In a hand-written note to the Republican State Senate leader the out-of-control governor claimed that his own party had thrown him "under the bus" because they refuse to back him up after he began this month to veto every bill passed inside the legislature - no matter its merit.

Only a man bent on political suicide would begin to publicly denounce his own party, especially when his administration was crashing and burning.

Recently LePage suggested state lawmakers from Lewiston, Maine should be “rounded up and
executed in the public square.”

The Bangor Daily News has reported that last Wednesday night, before an audience of about 200 high school students gathered at the annual Boys State convention, LePage said he wanted to shoot a political cartoonist who has drawn unflattering
caricatures of the governor for his newspaper’s opinion page. The son of the cartoonist was in the audience.

It's clear that Gov. Rampage is a sick man. Republicans and Democrats in the state legislature should intervene immediately on behalf of the people of Maine. Gov. Rampage has gone beyond being a joke and is now a danger to himself and to the public safety.

An online poll today at the Bangor Daily News drew more than 3,000 votes with 78% of respondents supporting impeachment of the wanna-be dictator.

An online petition was created today to support the calls for impeachment and can be signed here

Thursday, June 25, 2015

U.S. Goal is to Aggravate Russian-German Relations

Interview with Sahra Wagenknecht outspoken leftist German Member of Bundestag (Parliament).

She wants Berlin to show more independence from the US and pay more regard to interests of Germans - such as deescalation of Ukraine crisis and ending the sanctions on Russia which are having heavy impact on German business.

A Pew Research Center report has revealed that 45 percent of Germans polled had negative views of the US, compared to 50 percent who had positive views. Germany is America’s prize vassal pony, and yet public opinion is
rapidly turning against Washington. In 2000, 80 percent of Germans
viewed the U.S. favorably.

U.S. Has Sordid History of Biological Warfare in Korea

US may have been testing anthrax at two other bases in South Korea

Last month a live anthrax sample arrived in S. Korea, and the US is still declining to answer questions about it

Allegations are surfacing that United States Forces Korea (USFK) anthrax
testing has been conducted at bases in Gunsan, North Jeolla, and
Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province.

USFK is currently facing criticisms after an episode last month in which
a live anthrax sample was delivered for testing at Osan Air Base in
Gyeonggi Province.

The anthrax tests are part of USFK’s Joint United States Forces Korea
Portal and Integrated Threat Recognition (JUPITR) program. New
revelations show that USFK laboratories running the program exist not
only at Osan and Yongsan Garrison in Seoul, but also in Gunsan and
Pyeongtaek.

The group Citizens’ Association for Reclaiming the Kunsan US Military
Base as South Korean Land revealed the findings at a press conference on
June 17 in front of Kunsan Air Base.

The association also called for the US to “immediately stop its
biological and chemical warfare response training and close its
biological agent research centers.”

The US has a sordid history of using biological weapons in Korea. During the Korean War the US military dropped metallic shells on North Korea that snapped open upon hitting the ground,
releasing a swarming cargo of insects that unleashed bubonic plague,
smallpox, and anthrax.

An international scientific investigating team, headed by a highly noted
British biochemist from Cambridge University, did research in Korea and
issued a report saying that sudden appearances of insects and spiders,
of species not normally known in the region, in winter, and in
association with the dropping of strange containers and objects by US
military planes were evidence of bio-warfare. Lab tests performed on
fleas discovered in such unusual circumstances, positively showed the
presence of bubonic plague bacteria.

In some cases, US military jets, usually F-86 fighters, had flown over
North Korea dropping masses of fowl feathers tainted with anthrax.

In 1956 American journalist John Powell was charged with 13 counts of
sedition for trying to expose the US Biological Warfare campaign in Korea. In 1953
former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover brought Powell before congressional
committees charging him with “un-American activities.” Years later, in
the 1980’s, Powell’s story was finally aired in an article in the
Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

What is the Cost of Economic Sanctions on Russia?

Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Caroline Kennedy Turns Her Back on Okinawa

I want to be sensitive here but don't know any other way to say this - US Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy is just another political player.

Maybe I'm still naive and ignorant but I have to admit that if the CIA had killed my father and my uncle Bobby I'd not then choose to go to work for them by selling out the long suffering people of Okinawa.

We sincerely welcome you to visit Okinawa. Japan and the United
States have faced many challenges in negotiating on the areas of
foreign, security, defense and economic policy. However, we hope that
you as the US ambassador to Japan will exert your ability with
exceptional insight and in the spirit of humanism to reconstruct the
US-Japan relationship.

With the sense of responsibility coming from your father, would you open
the door to create new friendship between the U.S. and Ryukyu, and put
an end to the military colonial rule in Okinawa? We hope that your visit
to Okinawa will help change the policy and allow the government to
abandon the relocation plan to Henoko and to move the Futenma base
outside Okinawa.

Okinawa Governor Takeshi Onaga told U.S. Ambassador Caroline Kennedy of
his stringent opposition to the relocation of Futenma air base within
the prefecture only to be met with a cold rebuff.

In his first meeting with the U.S. ambassador to Japan in Tokyo on
June 19, Onaga told Kennedy that it is the “popular will” of the
Okinawan people to oppose the relocation of U.S. Marine Corps Air
Station Futenma in Ginowan to the Henoko district in Nago.

But the ambassador reiterated Washington’s position on the
matter, saying the Henoko relocation plan is the “only solution" that
addresses operational, political, financial and strategic concerns.

Kennedy responded that the presence of the U.S. military in Okinawa is a
cornerstone of peace and stability in East Asia, and reiterated the
unwavering commitment of the U.S. and Japanese governments to the
construction of a new airfield in Henoko.

So I shouldn't be surprised. Yes, Kennedy is presumably a "liberal Democrat" but in the end she upholds the American belief that Okinawa is 'our military colony' and Japan is the US's 'unsinkable aircraft carrier' in the Asia-Pacific allowing the US to aim its military might at China. To me this well illustrates how the US is ruled by various oligarchic families - Boston, New York, Chicago, Dallas, Miami, Los Angeles - but in the end all these corrupt families agree on US 'exceptionalism' and empire.

So what that Kennedy finds herself allied with Japanese right-wing Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (the grandson of a WWII Japanese fascist military leader) who wants to get rid of Article 9 in the Japanese constitution that forbids an aggressive military. In fact its Kennedy's job as ambassador to ensure that Abe carries through on the plan to get rid of Article 9! So what that Kennedy helps foster policies that increase confrontation with China and Russia in the region. She is doing what the corporate oligarchy demands and obviously she is willing to do that work.

I once was watching C-SPAN government affairs TV channel and saw former Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) receiving an award from former President George H. W. Bush at a college in Texas. I found it more than ironic that Kennedy (brother of the assassinated JFK) was taking this award from Bush who clearly was involved in the JFK assassination planning. How could Kennedy accept such a thing from a man who helped kill his brother?

It just goes to show I don't really understand how the game works. I guess it must be the supreme compliment for one ruling family to shower another with awards and ambassadorial positions. Nothing else appears to matter much - staying 'relevant' and close to power is all that these families seem to want.

A Hollowed-Out Economy and a Drowning Democracy

Gov.
Paul LePage carries water for America’s corporate oligarchy. (Webster’s
Dictionary defines oligarchy as “government in which power is in the
hands of the few.”)

A quick review of LePage’s time in office makes clear that he serves
the interests of the rich and the mega-corporations. America is being
hollowed out as jobs move overseas and democracy is drowned by corporate
power.

The governor does not care about the rule of law, thus his efforts to ignore Mainers’
votes on bonds. The governor vetoes bills from the opposition party no
matter the content. His primary goal is to divide the people of Maine
against one another — to make the state ungovernable. This is the basic
corporate agenda that is being played out across the nation and
literally around the world.

The U.S. corporate-run government spent $5 billion taxpayer dollars to help direct the coup d’état in Kiev, Ukraine just over a year ago. Now a civil war is underway on Russia’s
border. U.S. Army troops are currently in western Ukraine training the
“National Guard.” Neo-Nazi brigades have been put into military uniforms
(likely also provided by U.S. taxpayers), and are being drilled and
sent to the front to fight against Ukrainian citizens in the eastern
part of their nation. The citizens in the east are called “separatists”
because they want to speak their native language, Russian, and continue
trading with Russia as they have for thousands of years. (It would be
like the people of western Maine wanting to have trade and cultural relations with their relatives just over the New Hampshire border.)

I call the people in eastern Ukraine “self-defense forces” as they
defend themselves from constant missile shelling by the U.S.-
NATO-supplied puppet regime in Kiev. Kiev’s forces bomb civilian
apartment buildings, schools, day care centers, hospitals, airports and
railroad stations. Thousands of innocent people have been killed. Why?

The U.S.-NATO strategy in Ukraine has been clearly spelled out by
George Friedman, founder and CEO of the private intelligence corporation
STRATFOR. Friedman says that the U.S. wants “regime change” in Moscow.

Russia has the world’s
largest supply of natural gas and significant supplies of oil. In
addition, due to climate change, the Arctic Sea ice is melting. Western
oil corporations are itching to drill there. Russia has the largest land
border with the Arctic Sea. Don’t we know by now that the #1 job of the
Pentagon is to serve as the primary resource extraction service for
corporate globalization?

The corporations run the show in Washington. Just as democracy is being drowned in Maine,
it has been drowned at the national level, and the U.S. economy has
been hollowed out. We’ve been turned into a militarized culture where we
do endless war on behalf of corporate globalization.

If we were truly a democratic nation we’d be having a raging national
debate about whether or not the U.S. should be in the middle of waging a
war on Russia’s border. Usually, the U.S. likes to invade small nations that can’t really fight back like Grenada, Panama, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Iraq or Libya. But now, the U.S. is surrounding Russia (and China)
with an expanding NATO and deploying so-called “missile defense”
systems that are key elements in the Pentagon’s first-strike attack
program, along their borders. Russia and China could actually fight back
and WW III would likely turn into a nuclear exchange real quick.

To pay for all of this Congress wants further cuts in programs like
Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and what little is left of the
welfare program. So, at the state and national levels we see politicians
like Gov. LePage running divisive campaigns to demonize welfare
recipients in order to create the political climate to justify these
cuts. (When do we ever hear any politicians screaming about the hundreds
of billions of dollars of welfare given to corporations each year?)

Don’t hold your breath waiting for the corporate-dominated media to
bring this crucial story to our TV sets. Their job is “infotainment” and
promoting mass consumerism. The American people have been abandoned by
the corporate agenda. We’ve got to figure this one out ourselves if we
hope to provide any real future for the coming generations.

Monday, June 22, 2015

Stewart on Racist Killing in 'Confederate' State

Big Story from Ukraine......

A Ukrainian major general and former assistant to the country’s defense
minister, Aleksandr Kolomiyets, has announced he is now working with the self-defense forces of the
Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) in eastern Ukraine.

He claims a lot of people in the Ukrainian military want to
switch to the self-proclaimed republics’ side, including officers.
According to Kolomiyets, hundreds have already abandoned Kiev.

“Look at who is actually fighting. Only the volunteers from nationalist [neo-Nazi] squads,” the defector said at the news conference.

There
is growing dissatisfaction with the commanders, Kolomiyets said. “Soon,
there is going to be unrest within the military. They do not understand
the orders they are given, to kill civilians. We are going to see that
by autumn, everything will change.”

He added that morale is very
low in the Ukrainian army: “All the officers, the generals that
understand the criminal nature of the authorities’ actions, do not want
to fight.”

NATO Pokes Stick at Russia

Sunday, June 21, 2015

DPR Leader Speaks About U.S. Role in Ukraine

The self-defense forces in eastern Ukraine are based in the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People's Republic (LPR) - popularly called Donbass. Former coal miner Oleksandr Zakharchenko (leader of the DPR) comments on the Kiev's preparations for a new offensive against the huddled people near the Russian border who have been repeatedly attacked by the US-NATO war project during the past year. The Minsk ceasefire agreements are repeatedly violated by the Kiev regime - armed, trained, and directed by NATO.

The crime of those in eastern Ukraine? They happen to live near the Russian border, speak Russian as their primary language and want to have open economic relations with their neighbors.

The neo-Nazis from western Ukraine, many of whom worship nationalist Stefan Bandera who joined with Hitler during WW II when he swept through Ukraine to invade Russia, are currently being trained by US Army personnel. The US-NATO have set up bases in western Ukriane where US, Canadian and British troops are training the neo-Nazi "National Guard" units.

See more about how the people in eastern Ukraine are living under this constant US-NATO attack here

Justice for the Penobscot River

Indian Island on the Penobscot River in Maine

I drove two-hours north yesterday and joined well over 100 others on Indian Island to support the Penobscot Nation in their current struggle with the State of Maine over their sacred rights to the river. A beautiful gathering was held that included native song, drumming, and dancing as well as talks by Penobscot Chief Kirk Francis and other tribal leaders.

A brochure entitled 'Justice for the River' states:

The Penobscot people are an ancient riverine culture that has lived in synergy with the river for thousands of years before the disruption of European encroachment. Like other indigenous peoples of the Americas who have been subjected to genocide and conquest, the heritage and culture of the natives people of Maine need protection and respect, not continued assault.

The State of Maine needs to stop its ridiculous assertion that the ancient Penobscot Indian Nation does not include its ancestral waterways.

The Penobscots have been guaranteed their right to the lands and sustenance fishing repeatedly in treaties, including the 1775 Treaty of Watertown, which recognized the Penobscots' role in the American Revolution.

An 1831 Supreme Court decision held that native American tribes retain all their sovereign powers except those specifically taken from them by Congress. The land claims settlement did not specifically take away the River and these rights!

The Penobscot peoples are the best stewards for the River's health, ensuring that it can be enjoyed for generations to come.

A legal action, led by corporate industrial interests in Maine, is asking a judge to determine that the Penobscot
reservation does not include any portion of the Penobscot River.

Penobscot historian and activist Maria Girouard reminded the audience yesterday that her people always have believed that "hoarding and greed" were wrong and run counter to our sacred relationship with the natural world.

The attempt by the State of Maine and major corporate interests to claim that the ancient reservation, which is comprised of more than 200 islands in the Penobscot River, does not include the water is outrageous.